In my previous article I compiled a long list of hidden game mechanics, with more added in the comments. However, hidden mechanics are a privilege of video games, where most calculations happen inside the computer and it is easy to hide a small cheat that adjusts the balance to improve the experience. Board games have no such luxury: all the rules and content are in plain sight.
So how do you balance a game in this situation? Petr Sikachev, a senior graphics programmer at Eidos Montréal, shared his observations. I am bringing them out of the comments for everyone to see. Respect to programmers who understand game design, and to game designers who code.
You may know Petr from episode 69 of the How Games Are Made podcast, where he talks about his path to Canada and what graphics programmers do. I know him from working together on Skyforge, where I did level design and he programmed the water. Incidentally, Habr has his article on creating shore waves in the Skyforge engine, which gives an idea of the specifics of graphics programming.
All right, I will shut up and hand over to Petr.
—
I have not read any specialist game-design literature, so a disclaimer: these are entirely my own thoughts.
The basic problem is that all players need to remain interested for as long as possible. This is especially important when a session lasts over an hour, which is normal for board games. If someone is winning by a lot and someone else is losing badly, something needs to help them along.
A short excursion into the metagame: broadly speaking, board games—the subset of tabletop games played on boards, rather than card games, miniatures games, and so on—fall into two large categories: euro-type games, or eurogames, and thematic games, or ameritrash. The first minimize narrative, player conflict, randomness, and varying player powers; their gameplay is essentially about scoring as many points as possible. The second have a strong theme, usually direct conflict unless cooperative, unique player abilities, and randomness through dice, cards, and so forth. Obviously this distinction is not absolute.
When players are in direct conflict, there is some self-balancing with three or more players, because the others will try to bring down the leader rather than the weakest player to avoid losing. Sometimes that is enough. In Merchants & Marauders, we get comebacks almost every game, despite its very harsh PvP: when you die, another pirate takes EVERYTHING—gold, ship, special abilities, and so on.
Eurogames are trickier: direct, cheap ways to affect the leader are not always available. They therefore often have catch-up mechanics, as do many thematic games: something that slows the leader and helps weaker players.
Here is the list:
— Positive or negative events affecting only weaker or stronger players. For example, the player with the least food receives food; a player with zero lore gets one lore in Runebound. Or, less bluntly, all players with more than four food are reduced to four. Crude, but it works.
— Caps: you cannot have more than eight food, more than eight units on a single hex, and so on.
— Diminishing returns: exponentially increasing costs relative to usefulness.
— Best of all, support from the fiction. For example, income and reputation falling as the population grows in Suburbia. Another elegant example is Blood Rage, where you get victory points for YOUR slain warriors, because they have gone gloriously to Valhalla.
— Hidden scores. Other players do not know some of your victory points, so you cannot be certain whether you are winning or losing. In Ticket to Ride you do not know whether opponents have completed their tickets, which account for most of the points. In Castles of Mad King Ludwig you do not know the others’ personal goals, so you cannot know their scores either.
— Managing probability. Battlelore uses special dice with a 2/6 chance of melee damage, 1/6 ranged damage, 1/6 retreat, 1/6 special ability, and 1/6 lore or mana. If you roll poorly and kill nobody, perhaps you have activated a powerful special ability or gained enough mana to play an expensive card.
That is what comes to mind immediately. In principle, almost every successful game with sessions longer than an hour has some such feature, because continuous fun is even more important in board games than in video games: you are almost always playing with real people, sessions are longer, and good manners do not permit Alt+F4.
—
Yaroslav: taking the floor back. In addition to those examples, I remember a mechanic from the strategy board game A Game of Thrones. It has three influence tracks providing substantial bonuses, but positions are decided by auction, so one player cannot outbid everyone three times in a row.
As I understand it, the Civilization board game has similar balancing—I have not played it. One nation cannot lead in every area at once: military, science, economy, and culture. Even a leading nation will therefore be vulnerable to the others in some respect.
We should not forget Munchkin, whose gameplay is built around screwing over other players, especially the leader. That also prevents players getting bored while waiting for their turn.
Waiting for a turn is not a problem in A Game of Thrones either, since the pause is ideal for intrigue and plotting with other players, discussing plans for the next turn with temporary allies.
This suggests that board games can have hidden mechanics too: things that happen during play but are not regulated by the rules.
For example, Cluedo’s core mechanic is simple: deduce the combination of murderer, weapon, and location. With equally good mathematical skills, players approach the final combination almost simultaneously. The main winning mechanic is therefore observing other players’ reactions and interpreting them correctly. Naturally, the rules do not specify how players should react or how to interpret those reactions. But this cannot really be called cheating or deceiving the players.
I think readers can add more observations like these in the comments.
P.S. Board games are also discussed in the new episode of the How Games Are Made podcast. Recommended.
So how do you balance a game in this situation? Petr Sikachev, a senior graphics programmer at Eidos Montréal, shared his observations. I am bringing them out of the comments for everyone to see. Respect to programmers who understand game design, and to game designers who code.
You may know Petr from episode 69 of the How Games Are Made podcast, where he talks about his path to Canada and what graphics programmers do. I know him from working together on Skyforge, where I did level design and he programmed the water. Incidentally, Habr has his article on creating shore waves in the Skyforge engine, which gives an idea of the specifics of graphics programming.
All right, I will shut up and hand over to Petr.
—
I have not read any specialist game-design literature, so a disclaimer: these are entirely my own thoughts.
The basic problem is that all players need to remain interested for as long as possible. This is especially important when a session lasts over an hour, which is normal for board games. If someone is winning by a lot and someone else is losing badly, something needs to help them along.
A short excursion into the metagame: broadly speaking, board games—the subset of tabletop games played on boards, rather than card games, miniatures games, and so on—fall into two large categories: euro-type games, or eurogames, and thematic games, or ameritrash. The first minimize narrative, player conflict, randomness, and varying player powers; their gameplay is essentially about scoring as many points as possible. The second have a strong theme, usually direct conflict unless cooperative, unique player abilities, and randomness through dice, cards, and so forth. Obviously this distinction is not absolute.
When players are in direct conflict, there is some self-balancing with three or more players, because the others will try to bring down the leader rather than the weakest player to avoid losing. Sometimes that is enough. In Merchants & Marauders, we get comebacks almost every game, despite its very harsh PvP: when you die, another pirate takes EVERYTHING—gold, ship, special abilities, and so on.
Eurogames are trickier: direct, cheap ways to affect the leader are not always available. They therefore often have catch-up mechanics, as do many thematic games: something that slows the leader and helps weaker players.
Here is the list:
— Positive or negative events affecting only weaker or stronger players. For example, the player with the least food receives food; a player with zero lore gets one lore in Runebound. Or, less bluntly, all players with more than four food are reduced to four. Crude, but it works.
— Caps: you cannot have more than eight food, more than eight units on a single hex, and so on.
— Diminishing returns: exponentially increasing costs relative to usefulness.
— Best of all, support from the fiction. For example, income and reputation falling as the population grows in Suburbia. Another elegant example is Blood Rage, where you get victory points for YOUR slain warriors, because they have gone gloriously to Valhalla.
— Hidden scores. Other players do not know some of your victory points, so you cannot be certain whether you are winning or losing. In Ticket to Ride you do not know whether opponents have completed their tickets, which account for most of the points. In Castles of Mad King Ludwig you do not know the others’ personal goals, so you cannot know their scores either.
— Managing probability. Battlelore uses special dice with a 2/6 chance of melee damage, 1/6 ranged damage, 1/6 retreat, 1/6 special ability, and 1/6 lore or mana. If you roll poorly and kill nobody, perhaps you have activated a powerful special ability or gained enough mana to play an expensive card.
That is what comes to mind immediately. In principle, almost every successful game with sessions longer than an hour has some such feature, because continuous fun is even more important in board games than in video games: you are almost always playing with real people, sessions are longer, and good manners do not permit Alt+F4.
—
Yaroslav: taking the floor back. In addition to those examples, I remember a mechanic from the strategy board game A Game of Thrones. It has three influence tracks providing substantial bonuses, but positions are decided by auction, so one player cannot outbid everyone three times in a row.
As I understand it, the Civilization board game has similar balancing—I have not played it. One nation cannot lead in every area at once: military, science, economy, and culture. Even a leading nation will therefore be vulnerable to the others in some respect.
We should not forget Munchkin, whose gameplay is built around screwing over other players, especially the leader. That also prevents players getting bored while waiting for their turn.
Waiting for a turn is not a problem in A Game of Thrones either, since the pause is ideal for intrigue and plotting with other players, discussing plans for the next turn with temporary allies.
This suggests that board games can have hidden mechanics too: things that happen during play but are not regulated by the rules.
For example, Cluedo’s core mechanic is simple: deduce the combination of murderer, weapon, and location. With equally good mathematical skills, players approach the final combination almost simultaneously. The main winning mechanic is therefore observing other players’ reactions and interpreting them correctly. Naturally, the rules do not specify how players should react or how to interpret those reactions. But this cannot really be called cheating or deceiving the players.
I think readers can add more observations like these in the comments.
P.S. Board games are also discussed in the new episode of the How Games Are Made podcast. Recommended.